The Role of Media in Tourism

Mankind in the twenty-first century lives in a media-immersed world. Media has been a part of our lives for decades. Since humanity needed a medium to convey information, media have been developed with advance in technology and influenced by various socio-economic and political forces throughout history (Pace, 1977). Earlier media was limited to newspapers, magazines, radio and cinema (Mc Quail, 2000), but now due to the advances in technology there have been various new forms of media developed such as television, social media, internet and so on. Media is used as a major source of information for tourists. Frequent studies have proved that media play a crucial role in increasing awareness for a destination and influencing tourists intention to visit (Gartner, 1993; Gartner & Shen, 1992; Govers, Go, & Kumar, 2007). Media have played a vital role in accelerating the tourism industry in the world. It is because of media that we can say, “Tourism is the biggest industry in the world” (Martin Parr). There was a time when people used to travel for adventure and exploring new places with no previous idea of how the place is, but now due to a busy life travelling is much more an activity of leisure and people want to know all about the place they are going to and media is helping them to do so.

Although, it is always not that beneficial, many times the major proportion of money spent by tourists is on airline, hotels and other multi-national companies. According to a report in Thailand the 70% of all money spent by tourists actually left Thailand. In that case spending too much on promoting tourism through media can cost government a great deal of money. Media has a very powerful impact on the life of twenty-first century people. Different types of media have different type of influence on people. These media are giving boost to the new and rising industry of travel and tourism, which is now a huge part of our economy (Karen Hughes).

Literature Review

While "media" can be characterized in different courses in view of the specialists, typically the expression "media" is viewed as a Latin plural type of the particular thing "medium," which means a mediating substance through which something is passed on. The media incorporate TV, daily papers, music, films, magazines, books, radio, and the Internet (Campbell, Martin, and Fabos, 2011). Devereux utilizes McQuail as his source to characterize media by saying McQuail notices that media's quickly changing element has "significant results" on the social, political, and monetary society.

Since numerous examinations demonstrated that media severely affected tourism industry, they could be both positive and negative effects. Gartner et al. (1992) analyzed that media positively impact the image formation of the destination when the stories present or depict about a specific place. However, some stories also found the negative effects of terrible exposure on the destination pictures and additionally travelers' visits to the goals through media. Baloglu and McCleary (1999) clarified that the moderately terrible picture of Egypt among Americans shaped as a result of the news about fear in the nation. Also, Peel and Steen (2007) found the negative effect on the particular , destination example, the news about the national crime levels in Australia. To be specific, these investigations demonstrated the essential part of media in the tourism industry and recommended that media relations in tourism ought to be well maintained to avoid potential unfortunate events.

Types of Media

Television. There are various TV channels which shows documentaries of different countries and highlights their rich travel heritage. Examples of such platforms could be National Geographic, Fox Traveler, Travelxp, etc. Fictional shows also have been a major influencer in promoting tourism especially in twentieth century. Media-incited tourism demonstrates that individuals visit localities where motion pictures and TV programs have been taped (Beeton, 2005).

Film. Watching motion pictures is popular activity all through the world (Kim and Richardson, 2003). Film tourism is characterized as vacationer visits to a screened area that was highlighted in film, TV, or video, additionally alluded to as media-induced tourism (Hudson and Ritchie, 2006). Hahm and Wang (2011) planned the investigation to survey an effect of a particular motion picture released in Japan. This examination found that the movie specifically impacted the crowds; the audience specifically caught the positive and the negative, particular image of destination from the film. The film created a strong intention to travel among the respondents to that particular location. (Hahm and Wang, 2011).

Print Media: Book, Magazine, Brochure and Newspapers. This type of media was popular among reading enthusiasts and it help in providing a detailed information for the tourists. Newspapers were also the part of decision making process of tourists (Robertson and Rogers, 2009). In today’s time the craze is shifted towards magazines which has a greater influence on the mind of a tourist.

Internet. These days, individuals by and large perceive that the Internet is the most utilized data source (Choi and Lee, 2009). The Internet essentially reformatted the manner in which individuals accumulate tourism-related data when they intend to travel and buy the trip (Buhalis and Law, 2008). As of now, the World Wide Web have generated a lot of user generated content in the form of travel blogs and reviews (Huang, Chou, and Lin, 2010). The Internet is currently considered as a basic factor for the achievement of tourism industry (Buhalis and Licata, 2002; Carson, 2005).

Social Media. It is one of the fastest growing media on the internet and plays a very crucial role in tourism industry (Buhalis & Law, 2008). Well it is not just a medium of communication but also a medium of sharing information. It is most popular among youth and increasing is role in the travel industry day by day. Some of the social media which are big contributors to tourism industry are Youtube, Tripadvisor, Instagram, etc. There are many channels present in youtube which can inform you about almost every tourist destination on earth

Summary

From the literature review it is concluded that there are two types of media – print media and electronic media. Every type of media has a different reaction by people. Social media is more popular in todays context. Media if not used carefully can also have negative impacts on Tourism industry. But we can’t ignore the fact that is one of the most important reason for the boost of Travel and Tourism in the world.